PSLV Launch Failure : ISRO’s Second Failure In 24 Years

India’s premier rocket, PSLV failed to put a navigation satellite into orbit during a launch on Thursday, after some unknown malfunction prevented the satellite from leaving the vehicle.

In the last 24 years,PSLV has had 39 successful launches and only 2 failures,including the one that occurred yesterday.The only failure of the launch vehicle was when the rocket had failed to ignite after the second stage separated on September 20,1993.

ISRO, in a statement, confirmed that the payload fairing, which it calls the “heat shield,” failed to separate, failing the mission. “All stages of the mission performed well, but the satellite is still inside the fourth stage,” A S Kumar Kiran, chairman of ISRO, said.

“We could see the satellite circling in its orbit along with the heat shield. We’ll have to check the head shield separation command and see what went wrong,” he said.

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is the third generation launch vehicle of India. It is the first Indian launch vehicle to be equipped with liquid stages. During 1994-2017 period, the vehicle has launched 48 Indian satellites and 209 satellites for customers from abroad. Besides, the vehicle successfully launched two spacecrafts – Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 and Mars Orbiter Spacecraft in 2013 – that later travelled to Moon and Mars respectively.

Failure occurred,when ISRO is banking heavily on PSLV for at least two important future projects—the second mission to Mars and Chandrayaan-2. The vehicle is also supposed to carry a private lander to the Moon for TeamIndus, a competitor in the Google Lunar X Prize to send a privately funded vehicle to the lunar surface. With the failure the upcoming project plans now seem to unclear. However, no comments have been made by the officials in regard of the future events in accordance with the failure occurred.

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